Roller bearing cage

Abstract

A roller bearing cage is made of a bent strip of sheet metal having abutting ends that are connected to one another, the cage being comprised of two end rings and a cage frame surrounding the windows, the windows retaining and guiding the rollers. In order to permit the manufacture of rolling element bearing cages of different reference circle diameters while using only one tool for rolling elements with a specific diameter d, the center distance between adjacent the cage windows in the circumferential direction is πd/2.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. In a rolling element bearing cage assembly including a cage made of a bent strip of sheet metal having abutting ends connected to one another, wherein the cage is comprised of two end rings and a cage frame surrounding a plurality of windows, said windows retaining a guiding rolling elements, the improvement wherein the center distance of the cage windows in a flat development of the cage section is πd/2, in which d is the diameter of the rolling elements, the cage windows adjacent to the partition of the bent cage section being spaced a center distance from one another which is less than πd along the reference circle in a circumferential direction, and which is complementary to the size of the reference circle. 
     
     
       2. The rolling element bearing cage of claim 1, wherein the partition along the median line thereof defines a window having a dimension in a circumferential direction that is less than the corresponding dimension of adjacent windows.